


If it could be held

by cerebel



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Mentalist
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebel/pseuds/cerebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bodyguard.</p>
<p>In a suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If it could be held

“A bodyguard.”

“Uh. Yes.”

“A bodyguard in a suit.”

“That’s what I said. That is – that is what I said, isn’t it?”

“A bodyguard in a suit tangled with – with Obadiah, um, Stane? Am I pronouncing that correctly? – and you were where exactly?”

“…I’ll get back to you on that.”

“You’ll get back to me.”

“Yes?”

“You’re a terrible liar, Mr. Stark.”

“Well, you’re not that great an interrogator, Ms. Lisbon.”

“Agent Lisbon.”

“Excuse me.”

Patrick Jane half-smiles, turned away from the conversation as he is. He’s pretty sure Lisbon and Tony Stark have gone through the same territory three or four times now, sporadically interrupted by that redhead woman or someone else with an Important Piece of Information for Stark.

“Listen,” Lisbon is explaining, as Jane tunes back in, “as a major case team within the California Bureau of Investigation, this falls under my purview. And I won’t have any case I take be made a mockery of.”

Tony shrugs. “No mockery. Nope, no mockery here. There’s just, I mean, there’s not a case.”

“You have a nice house, Mr. Stark,” calls Jane, from the window.

“Thank you,” says Tony, relaxing back into his couch. As if he could be any more relaxed than he already was. 

Jane smiles, disarmingly, moving towards the two of them. 

Lisbon retreats a little, glancing towards Jane. Ready to give him the lead in the interrogation, if he can break something loose from the unproductive Tony Stark.

“Lisbon thinks this is a waste of time,” confesses Jane, to Stark.

Lisbon rolls her eyes.

“Another rich man,” says Jane, “another case for the CBI. And, for this one, solving it doesn’t matter quite as much as closing it. Or at least I’d guess that’s what her boss said. Is that what your boss said?”

“I treat every case the same,” says Lisbon. She’s lying, a little, but it’s for Stark’s benefit, not Jane’s. She’s playing a part, now.

Stark tilts his head. “What are you, exactly?” he asks. “CBI? Another agent?”

“Nope,” says Jane, “just a consultant.”

Stark flicks an eyebrow. “What do you consult on, Mr. Jane?”

So Stark did remember his name, from the introductions earlier. “This and that,” says Jane. “Does your nice house make you feel guilty?”

“No,” says Stark. “Do people hold it against you that you’re so handsome?”

“No,” returns Jane. “Do people hold it against you that you sold weapons to terrorists for most of your adult life?”

“I don’t know,” says Stark, “why don’t you ask them?”

“I would,” says Jane, “but I think they’re afraid of bodyguards in suits.”

Lisbon has to hide a smile at that one.

Stark takes a sip of the – whiskey? – in his glass, hiding most of his expression, but there’s no hiding what’s in his eyes. 

Jane smiles. “How about you tell us what really happened?”

“Gosh,” says Tony, “I’m pretty sure a bodyguard in a suit killed Obadiah Stane.”

“What’s the bodyguard’s name?”

“I’ll get back to you on that. Next?”

“What was Obadiah Stane trying to do?” 

Stark pauses, at this. “Anything he wanted,” he says, “at the expense of anything that mattered.”

“So it was Stane who was selling to terrorists, not you,” clarifies Jane.

Stark shrugs. “Next question?”

“Can I see your lab?”

“What?”

“I’d like to see your lab,” says Jane. “Can I?”

“ _No._ ”

“If I had a warrant, could I see your lab?”

“We don’t have a warrant,” cuts in Lisbon. “Mr. Stark is speaking with us ‘voluntarily’.”

“You can’t see my lab,” says Stark. “There are important things in my lab.”

“Is it like the Bat Cave?” asks Jane. 

“You know,” says Stark, “I have a press conference in an hour, and we all know how well those go. So I’m going to have to ask you all to leave. That’s right. Scoot.”

Lisbon stands, reluctantly.

Jane just smiles. “See you soon,” he promises.

~*~

“What do you think happened?” asks Lisbon.

“Did you see how he moved?” asks Jane. “Like everything hurt. Like he’d just been through a war zone.”

Lisbon stops in her tracks, halfway down Tony Stark’s pristine driveway. “You’re kidding me.”

“Hm?”

“People like that don’t suit up and become superheroes,” says Lisbon.

“He did,” says Jane.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Pretty sure he did.”

~*~

An hour later, Lisbon sighs, leaning back in her chair, her eyes on the television screen.

“Told you,” says Patrick Jane.

~*~

Jane comes home that night to find an unfamiliar car parked outside. 

He takes out his phone, ready to call Lisbon’s number. The door is still locked, though – or re-locked, whichever. There’s no sign of an intruder in the living room, in the kitchen – 

And there’s Tony Stark, silhouetted against the windows of the dining room.

“This is breaking and entering,” Jane points out, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“Aren’t you the police?” asks Tony.

“That depends,” says Jane.

“On what?”

“How much Agent Lisbon likes me today. What are you doing here?”

“I was curious.” Tony turns to face him. “Your house is very empty.”

“Even ‘stark’, one might say,” remarks Jane.

“Funny. You gave up a lot of money in being a psychic.”

Jane half-smiles. “You gave up a lot of money in arms sales.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“It wasn’t to my taste,” says Jane. “Why’d you quit?”

Tony pauses. “It wasn’t to my taste,” he says, finally.

Jane lets the silence stretch, for a moment. “What are you doing here?” he repeats.

“You asked me,” says Tony. 

“Asked you about what?”

“Whether my house made me feel guilty,” says Tony. “It does.”

“I know.”

“Yours makes you feel guilty too.”

Jane doesn’t answer.

“Otherwise you would have washed the face off the wall,” says Tony. “Upstairs.”

“Get out.” Jane’s voice is dead cold.

“Or you’ll call the cops?”

“Or I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough.” Tony takes a step back. “Come to the house sometime. I’ll show you my lab.”

He vanishes, then, out the door.

~*~

True to Tony’s word, Jane is, somehow, on the acceptable list of guests to the Stark mansion, and the guards let him in without question when he tries to pass the gates. 

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing here.

Pepper Potts meets him at the doorway. “He’s down in the lab,” she tells him, courteously. “He said to escort you down.”

Jane flashes a smile at her. “Thank you very much,” he says.

She blushes.

~*~

“Hang on,” says Tony, holding up a hand. He’s working on something, a hologram that Jane couldn’t begin to understand. Messing with this and that.

Very hands-on.

Jane settles back against the wall – new glass, he notices, newer than the rest. Maybe the fight was briefly in Stark’s mansion, too? 

It’s twenty minutes before Tony looks up again, blinking, like he hadn’t remembered that Jane was there.

Jane finds, oddly, that he doesn’t mind the elapsed time. Not at all.

“Want to see?” asks Tony, finally.

Jane moves over to the holo-table, or whatever it is. “What am I seeing?”

“Newest arc reactor design.”

Arc reactor. “That’s an arc reactor?” asks Jane, with a nod towards the glow underneath Tony’s tank top.

“Yeah,” says Tony. 

“Why does it glow?” asks Jane.

“Light is a byproduct of the reaction that produces electrical energy,” says Tony.

“That’s not what I asked,” says Jane, with a slow smile.

Tony meets his eyes. “Same reason you don’t paint your walls,” he says.

“Do you really think that people would resent me for being attractive?” asks Jane, diverting the conversation, somewhat.

“Don’t know,” says Tony. “People do that sometimes with my assistant. I like the vest look.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you feel about the ruggedly handsome mechanic look?”

Jane lets his smile spread. “I could be convinced.”

“Right,” says Tony. “At long last, let’s take this to the bedroom, shall we?”

~*~

Tony Stark has a wicked tongue.

There’s not much foreplay. Jane was obscurely expecting it, but Tony gets down to business, rather quickly, and after a couple minutes, Jane realizes why. Because no one needs _fore_ play when the _play_ lasts this long.

Jane twists, biting down on his fist to muffle the noise as Tony releases him, Jane’s cock sliding out of Tony’s lips. 

“What am I thinking?” asks Tony.

Jane laughs, shifting up on his elbows. “What are you thinking?” he echoes.

“Yeah.” Tony settles down above him. “You’re a psychic, right?”

Jane studies him, for a moment, heartbeat steadying. “Come here,” he says, drawing Tony up until they’re level. 

“Is proximity necessary for telepathy?” asks Tony. “Cause we could have more. Proximity, I mean.”

Jane covers the arc reactor, with his palm. Blocking out the glow.

Tony’s breath catches.

“Kiss me,” says Jane.

“Oh, _hell_ yes,” breathes Tony.

~*~

Somehow, in the morning, the entire bed is wrecked.

Jane doesn’t remember being that active, but he does remember making out with Tony for a really long time, and sometimes he was on top, sometimes Tony was, which probably accounts for the widespread wreckage. 

There’s a knock at the door, 8:17 AM, and Tony stirs. Groans out a noise approximating “ _what?_ ”, and the door opens.

Pepper falters when she sees that Jane is in Tony’s bed, still. “Mr. Stark,” she says, “you have an appointment at 8:30.”

“Why,” says Tony, half-muffled into a pillow, “would I do that?”

“You probably didn’t plan on debauching a member of the California Bureau of Investigation the night before,” Pepper points out.

Jane laughs, into Tony’s shoulder.

“He’s not technically _in_ the California Bureau of Investigation,” Tony counters.

“Appointment,” says Pepper. “Eleven minutes.”

“Fine.” Tony rolls over, eyeing Jane. “Don’t go. I’ll be back.”

~*~

In half an hour, he’s back.

The bed looks even worse, afterwards.

Tony sprawls back, hands behind his head. “I’m going to tell the security to let you in whenever you want,” he tells Jane.

“Really,” says Jane.

“Really,” says Tony.

And that’s that.


End file.
